ages, here to witness the unofficial official cheese-rolling championships. It seems incredible that the event has seemingly been so well organized when there are no official organizers. Without structure, money or a committee, the event has somehow managed to corral spectators, crowd control and competitors. It is perhaps a fine reflection of Englishness that the entire event is so beautifully managed.
Back to the top of the hill and my heart is pounding as I wait for the count to begin, images of broken bones racing through my mind.
‘I broke my neck racing the cheese last year,’ smiles a young girl. ‘I can’t decide whether to race it again this year,’ she adds.
‘I’ll count to four,’ instructs the official-looking unofficial. ‘We will release the cheese on three, you run on four.’
I look around at the nervous faces beside me as people dig their heels into the slippery slope. The hill is so steep and the mud so ice-like that it is difficult not to let gravity take its course even while sitting. Every so often one of the competitors slides a couple of metres down the slope, before struggling back up.
Next to me is Chris, the multi-winning champion who is also a serving soldier. ‘Any secrets or advice?’ I ask nervously.
‘Just go for it. Commit to the cheese,’ he smiles, ‘and keep the body loose.’
So worried have the army been about his participation and likely injury that they urged him not to compete, even changing his shift to coincide with the morning of the event. But wild dogs wouldn’t keep Chris from competing in his beloved event. He is the joint world champion cheese-roller, winning two cheeses – an honour he carries with pride.
The huge round cheese – its edges encased in wood to protect it from breaking up as it bounces down the hill – is rolled one-handed into position next to me by another Unofficial in a white coat and bowler hat, clutching a beer in his other hand.
‘For Dutch courage,’ smiles a man wearing a luminous yellow jacket that bear the words ‘Fuck Health and Safety’, offering me a bottle of whisky. I take a swig and hold my breath.
‘One, two …’
‘Three.’ And with that the cheese begins to roll, picking up speed in microseconds.
‘Four …’ There is a slight delay and then my feet begin to turn.
I take one huge stride before the gooey mud takes over. My legs are swiped from under me and I land with a heavy thud on the mud, before picking up speed as gravity does her thing. There is no stopping me now as I struggle to regain my balance, but my bottom clings to the mud like a bobsled to the icy track, following the contours of a small water channel. All around me I am aware of tumbling legs as competitors cartwheel, slip and stride down the vertiginous slope. I hear the roar of the spectators as I momentarily regain my balance and take another stride before slipping forwards, head first through a patch of stinging nettles and then over a small hillock. I am fleetingly airborne before roly-polying sideways over my arm and back onto my bottom.
Once again I take to my feet as the hill begins to flatten out. And now I face one of the biggest dangers of all … the local rugby team.
They have traditionally been used to slow competitors down and prevent collisions with the crowd gathered at the bottom of the hill. For ‘slow down’ read ‘tackle to the ground’, often with low leg tackles. I have been warned about the rugby team and now, on my legs once again and out of control, I find myself hurtling towards two enormous rugger buggers.
‘It’s Fogle’ is the last thing I hear before four arms envelop the lower part of my body and I come to a grinding halt in a heap at the bottom of the hill.
I lie there in a daze for a moment before another hand hauls me to my feet. I am a muddy mess, my arms covered in long scratches and grazes, my legs in large stinging-nettle welts, but apart from a throbbing pain in my right arm, I am not only alive but appear to be intact. Which is more than can be said for my fellow competitors, one of whom lies prostrate and unconscious at the bottom of the slope as a small crowd of concerned Unofficials gather around.
I catch a glimpse of Chris parading the cheese in front of the gathered world media. The event will be beamed around the world, from the Today Show in America to the front page of Australian newspapers. Somehow I have survived the cheese rolling and lived to tell the tale.
In many ways, cheese rolling in all its glorious absurdity defines us as a nation. It is daft, eccentric and gloriously pointless. There is no particular reason to do it, but it has become a rich part of our heritage, though no one really knows how or even when. We love to laugh at it even though it can cause serious injury. It involves stubborn, stiff-lower-jawed participants happy to tumble head over heels through mud and nettles and risk their lives in a hapless and, let’s be honest, hopeless task to chase a cheese at 70mph.
It defies rhyme or reason. It isn’t sexy or cool or clever. It is muddy and hurty, but it has an essential ‘Englishness’ about it …
This book has been a little like a chameleon. It has changed and morphed as I have travelled the length and breadth of England. A bit like us when we dress for the English weather, this book has never been quite sure what clothes to put on. So, as part of my researches, I have walked the quicksands of Morecambe Bay with the Queen’s Guide and climbed Helvellyn with the Fell Top Assessor. I have chased cheeses down Gloucestershire hills and danced with Morris dancers in Rochester. I have been fortunate to walk the grounds of Buckingham Palace and to exercise the horses of the Royal Household Cavalry on their summer holiday in Norfolk. I have sat through rain-drenched hours of missed play at Wimbledon and squelched through the mud of Glastonbury. I have walked the corridors of No. 10 Downing Street with prime ministers and I have served tea at Betty’s Tea Room in Harrogate. Each one quintessentially English, but what do they say about us as a nation?
After all, to the outside world, we are British. I remember once flying to New York and at immigration faced the frankly terrifying border guards at JFK airport.
‘What is your nationality?’ he asked.
‘English,’ I replied.
‘You can’t be English,’ he answered flatly.
‘But I am,’ I continued foolishly.
‘You can be British, but there’s no such thing as being English,’ he scowled.
What’s more, English and Englishness have become so politically incorrect. The words have been hijacked by UKIP and the BNP, becoming something that many of us feel squeamish about. We are unsure if we are even allowed to call ourselves English. We are, of course British, a part of a unique union of nations that make up Great Britain. We are not English, although we may be Scottish or Welsh or Northern Irish.
More often than I can remember during the research for this book, I’ve been told that I’m British not English. ‘I’m writing a book about Englishness,’ I would explain; there would be a pause, a head tilt and then,
‘Don’t you mean Britishness?’
‘No,’ I’d reply, ‘I mean Englishness.’
‘I think you mean Britishness,’ they’d inevitably repeat, adding in a whisper, ‘Don’t forget the other nations.’
And when I went onto social media to ask people for ideas on what are our English traits, the most common reply was
